For far too long, adjusting the position and balance of cargo transport carriers has been ergonomically and physically awkward, which is a significant and continuing disincentive for properly adjusting, balancing and positioning such carriers. Consequently, animate load bearers have increasingly experienced an elevated incidence of neck, shoulder, and back pain resulting from improperly balanced or positioned cargo transport carriers. The cases and case studies now are legion where often permanent injury and chronic back pain have been epidemiologically linked to poorly positioned and unbalanced cargo transport carriers. The fact of the matter is that many animate load bearers simply opt to bypass transport carrier adjustment and continue bearing unbalanced or ill-positioned loads rather than fiddle with inconveniently located or flimsily constructed conventional shoulder strap adjuster devices.
Alternatively, transport carrier adjustment may actually be desirable, but nonetheless unachievable if, as is often the case, adjustment requires the use of both hands simultaneously or—even worse—complete removal of the cargo transport carrier to achieve a desired adjustment, and an animate load bearer is engaged in an activity that is not conducive to making such an adjustment. For instance, an animate load bearer may be hiking, mountain climbing, skiing, hunting or conducting reconnaissance when cargo within the cargo transport carrier shifts, which makes transport carrier adjustment desirable. However, completely removing the cargo transport carrier for adjustment may not be feasible under such circumstances, and in many cases only one hand is free to engage an adjuster, while the other hand is required to maintain balance or a grip on equipment involving the activity undertaken. Thus, either consciously or unconsciously, animate load bearers often forgo necessary cargo transport carrier adjustments to their own physical peril—or are inconvenienced in the midst of an ongoing activity by having to remove a cargo transport carrier for adjustment, or use both hands to achieve adjustment.
Conventional cargo transport carrier strap adjuster devices do not provide an adequate or effective solution to the disadvantages discussed above. For example, U.S. Pat. No. 4,660,751 to von Dewitz discloses a device to secure and adjust rucksack shoulder straps. Upper ends of each respective shoulder strap are attached to pivotally mounted fittings attached to a retaining piece of the device, which permits lateral distance adjustment between shoulder straps in the shoulder region to adjust to the physical build of the wearer, so that shoulder straps are ideally supported in an optimum position. However, the retaining piece and pivotally mounted shoulder strap fittings are mounted in the center of the rear surface of the rucksack. The shoulder straps are set in position by tightening a tensioning screw attached through the pivotally mounted shoulder strap fittings after the fittings are positioned at a desired pivotal setting. Obviously, the device's configuration and location during use renders access and adjustment inconvenient, and most likely requires that the rucksack be removed, or at a minimum that both hands be used, to achieve the desired adjustment. Moreover, the disclosed device does not provide for incrementally adjusting each shoulder strap individually, or thereby positioning the rucksack so as to achieve a desired balance. Rather, the stated aim of the invention is to secure shoulder straps to the device in a configuration allowing a wearer to adapt the lateral distance between the shoulder straps to the wearer's build and physique.
The invention disclosed in Publication No. US 2004/0205941 A1 is likewise impotent to resolve the aforementioned disadvantages. US 2004/0205941 discloses a reducer adjuster buckle, which is designed for use with flexible webbing tapes, including those attached to harnesses and backpacks. The import of the disclosed invention is to provide a single device that simultaneously engages straps of different widths, to combine the functions of fixedly attaching a wide strap at one end, and slideably adjusting a narrower strap at the opposite end of the device to ultimately achieve adjustment. The slide strap characteristics of the disclosed invention are commensurate with the same disadvantages discussed above, including requiring the use of both hands to adjust each strap at a time, and allowing for the potential of dangling strap ends, which could snag on a nearby object and cause inconvenience or injury—or both.
Physical and functional limitations abound in the abovementioned, and various other, conventional shoulder strap adjusters. Accordingly, the present invention is designed to eliminate the major adjustment-related limitations inherent in such conventionally available adjusters, and to facilitate an animate load bearer in adjusting a cargo transport carrier easily and effectively. It is plain from the devices discussed above that an animate load bearer must remove the cargo transport carrier in order to make a desired shoulder strap adjustment—or at the very least use both hands simultaneously to engage a strap adjuster and adjust one side shoulder strap at a time. The present invention resolves both of these problems simultaneously by allowing an animate load bearer to incrementally, and therefore more accurately, adjust a shoulder side strap without the necessity of removing the cargo transport carrier to achieve a desired adjustment, and without the companion necessity of using both hands to adjust one side shoulder strap at a time. The inventive radial adjuster device is positioned near the upper abdominal or pectoral areas of an animate load bearer, and is therefore fully visible and easily accessible during use, which obviates the need to remove a cargo transport carrier in order to achieve a desired adjustment. Moreover, the inventive device's structural design, combined with the incorporation of rotational motion to adjust each shoulder strap individually, allows an animate load bearer to manipulate the device and correspondingly adjust each shoulder strap using only one hand, leaving the other hand free for a variety of other purposes, including simultaneously adjusting the laterally positioned radial adjuster device and corresponding side-shoulder strap. In addition, with the inventive device in use, dangling excess shoulder strap ends protruding from each side of a cargo transport carrier are completely eliminated. Thus, an animate load bearer is no longer exposed to the disadvantages and possible dangers associated with snagging excess shoulder strap ends on an inanimate object during an activity, which could prove to be inconvenient at best—and fatal at worse—depending upon the attendant circumstances.